Short review: One of my favorite humorous novels, expertly read by Martin Jarvis. I’m sure I’ll listen to this book over and over again.

Long review: I have a deep and abiding love for this novel. I’ve read it on paper a number of times, and was happy to find an audio version of it. I’m an unabashed fan of both authors, and find works like this one feel particularly suited to audiobook format, since it is such a storyteller’s story. It’s funny and silly, but also examines important questions about belief and ethics. It’s peopled by interesting, charismatic characters who are wonderful to listen to. And, as is vital to a work like this, the authors know the source material they’re playing with.

In short, the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley become unlikely friends way back in the way back, and both end up being posted on Earth in the UK in our modern world, expected to do their work to support their sides in the great ongoing war between heaven and hell. The two fall in love with their lives on Earth, and decide that perhaps the apocalypse wouldn’t be all that great for them and maybe should be prevented. They set out to track down the Anti-Christ, an 11 year old boy unaware of his true parentage, and try to prevent his rise. As the story progresses, we learn of Agnes Nutter, Witch and her descendant Anathema Device, witch-hunters, the Four Horsemen, some interesting kids, and a number of other kooks wandering around this Gaiman/Pratchett universe of the book. I won’t say more, because I can’t say any of it as well as they did.

The flaw has nothing to do with Brick’s narration. His pace is excellent, his voice is great, his delivery is spot on, and he’s well worth listening to. He does overdo it a bit here and there, but with material so fraught, that doesn’t surprise me.

The book follows Jimmy, Sean, and Dave–three childhood friends from Boston who grow apart and are then dragged back together by a murder case. As adults, Jimmy is a reformed criminal whose daughter is found murdered, Sean is a homicide detective investigating the murder, and Dave is a guy who never got over a terrible attack during his childhood. The plot circles around many the possible suspects for the murder; delves into Dave’s horrid experience and the community’s reaction to it; and generally pokes at what we think causes people to be criminals.

The story is engrossing. It’s full of flawed characters and misdirections. But I think the end is based on a complete cop-out, and that colors the way I see the rest of the book. I walk away from it feeling betrayed by Lehane and wishing there was an alternate ending that would fix the final chapters.

Middlesex: A Novel

Available from Audible.com

Author: Jeffrey Eugenides
Reader: Kristoffer Tabori

Short Review: A novel I absolutely love, full of gorgeous language, beautifully-rendered characters, and entrancing history and myth. Tabori’s reading is downright fantastic, and Eugenides remains one of the most talented writers of his generation. This is one of the best books I’ve ever read or listened to.

Long Review: I read this book on paper several years ago and found it absolutely fascinating. Eugenides treats his subject matter with a great deal of tenderness and honesty, never turning towards the louche or sensational.

For those who’ve missed the hype: the protagonist of Middlesex is a hermaphrodite who is raised as a girl and then chooses to live as a man upon discovering the nature of his unusual condition. That’s not a spoiler–the book opens with this very information. The book is about genetics, the nature of love and family, the natures of human sexuality and gender (which are two different things), Smyrna, Greek-Americans, silk, the foundation of the Nation of Islam, Detroit, racial relations . . . it’s about many fascinating things. It is so engrossing because Caliope/Cal is a true work of art. Eugenides knows how to build a character. He richly deserved that Pulitzer.

Because I loved the paper book so much, I was a bit worried about picking up the audiobook. It drives me batty when someone reads a book I love in the wrong voice for my head. Thankfully, I could listen to Tabori read the phonebook. I wasn’t familiar with him prior to this book, but I look forward to hearing more of his work. Tabori switches comfortably between the voices of many characters, from the basement-deep Jimmy Zizmo to the quavering, fragile Desdemona-as-grandmother. He plays the characters well, but doesn’t push it too far. He’s clearly playing Cal playing the other characters, rather than trying to leave his roll as first-person narrator for those other characters.

In part, the book is so successful because Eugenides is such a careful researcher. Descriptions of Smyrna, silk production, the birth of the US car industry, prohibition, Turkey, genetics, gender reassignment, and many other topics all ring true. Without that underlying research, the book would fall apart. I finished the book with a list of things I wanted to research and a real sense of wonder about Smyrna in particular.

Overall, I think the most surprising thing about Middlesex is its humor. If you describe this book or The Virgin Suicides to someone who isn’t familiar with Eugenides’ work, they’ll assume both stories are weighty, heartbreaking tragedies. In fact, both stories are so engaging because they’re so drenched in wit and humor. Cal, in particular, is charmingly self-effacing and funny. He’s not self-pitying, he doesn’t chastise his relatives for his treatment or his condition. He recognizes the absurdity of humanity itself, as should we all.

Short Review: Cormier’s final novel, published posthumously, read by the talented Scott Shina. It’s disturbing, and upsetting, and good despite its flaws.

Long Review: The title alone would have made me listen to this audiobook. I am an obsessive W.B. Yeats fan, and the title of Cormier’s final novel quotes a line from the masterful “The Circus Animal’s Desertion;” Yeats’ musings on the possible collapse of his talent and career. I’m also a fan of Cormier’s work, which I encountered as a lit student considering teaching English.

The novel opens in an interrogation room, as Trent takes a confession from a murderer. Trent, who is burning out on his job, is called upon to interrogate suspects in a child murder case. Then we encounter 12 year old Jason Dorrant. Jason has a hard time making friends, preferring the company of his 7 year old friend Alicia to that of most of the kids his age. When Alicia is found dead, local authorities focus on Jason as their prime suspect, assuming he killed the girl after spending the afternoon with her. Trent is called upon to drag a confession out Jason. Because it’s a high-profile case, Trent faces external pressure to make Jason confess, no matter what.

As I listened, I felt myself constantly questioning Jason’s competence. He seemed slow, but then perhaps he was just a modest kid, but maybe . . . I really wondered whether Jason had some sort of unnamed impairment, and that frustrated me. As the novel progressed, I was furious that no adults seemed the least bit concerned with Jason’s safety. I’m sure Cormier wanted us to feel that way, but I kept wondering if he went bit too far. Is our justice system really this flawed? Do we protect child suspects so poorly? Are interrogators so craven? I don’t know the answers to those questions, but they haunt me. That, really, is Cormier’s greatest strength–he makes us question our justice system and the responsibilities adults have to children. But those moralistic threads can go too far. Cormier definitely liked to pound home lessons through his books, and in this instance I think the ending jumps to a conclusion I don’t think is realistic.

That said, I do like the book. Cormier had a great ability to get inside his characters’ minds, and he certainly does that here, with both Jason and Trent. Shina is a good, clear reader, and he makes himself comfortable in both Jason’s and Trent’s voice.

Author: Suzanne Collins
Reader: Carolyn McCormick

Short Review: Creative, captivating and intense young-adult drama with a strong 16-year-old female protagonist and set in a brutal far-future. Decent reader, but I kept wishing for a bit more emotion in her reading. That said, the story was so captivating that I couldn’t stop listening!

Long Review: I am a big fan of world building done well – and Collins has built a rich vision of a far distant future both more technologically advanced and more brutal than what we might expect. In this far future, children from across former North America (now called Panem) are forced to fight to the death in a carefully wrought creation that is part reality TV, part survivor and part Roman Colosseum. The tension between the ivory tower of the capitol and the impoverished and heavily restricted lives of those in the twelve districts which support it stretches from start to finish. There is a lot to chew on here.

Against this backdrop we get to know Katniss. Katniss Everdeen is 16 and lives in the coal country of District 12 with her mother and younger sister.  Katniss spends most of her time each day hunting, gathering, or trading for enough food for her little family to survive. She has been fighting to keep herself alive for years. The transition from being the girl who brings people meat to being a tribute from District 12 fighting for her life is less startling than you might expect.

Katniss has watched the Games every year (the power never goes out when the Games are on) and she does everything she possibly can to increase her chances of survives. Collins reveals details of how things work in this world gradually. Right up to the end of the story we are learning about Panem and learning about Katniss. I appreciated hearing this story from her perspective. It makes all her choices and experiences feel closer to the surface. Even when we understand things that she cannot, usually in the emotional attitudes of those around her, we see only what she sees.

I did not love the reader. I felt that McCormick kept Katniss and the intensity of her world at arms length during the reading. It is hard to put my finger on what bothered me. The dialog was fine, with reasonable and recognizable voices for the characters. It was long stretches of narration that felt too rhythmic, too even-keeled somehow. It wasn’t enough to keep me from enjoying the story – but I kept catching myself trying to imagine what it might sound with a different reader.

Overall, it is an amazing ride and I am hungry for the sequel. Collins has created a terrifying world and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Audio sample available.

Author: Carl Hiaasen

Reader: Stephen Hoye

Short Review: An engaging, funny, environmental crime novel set in the Florida Everglades. Hiaasen is a gem, and Hoye is good but doesn’t shine quite as brightly.

Long Review: As the book opens, Hiaasen has us witness an attempted murder at sea. The beautiful young Joey Perrone is thrown overboard by her husband Chaz. In the water, Joey reminisces over just how useless her murdering husband is as she struggles to stay alive. Retired cop Mick Stranahan rescues Joey the next morning, and hilarity ensues. Hiaasen draws a number of memorable likeable (or dislikeable) characters and sketches some extras to fill out the plot. Chaz is truly distasteful; Joey, Mick, and Karl Rolvaag are truly likable.

I won’t reveal any more about the plot. Hiaasen’s books are as enjoyable as they are because he plays with plot and language so effectively, and I’d hate to diminish any of that fun for a reader. Suffice it to say that Hiaasen keeps it fun and maintains quick pacing throughout the story.

I always hesitate to criticize audiobook narrators–it’s a hard job, and one I don’t have any direct experience with. But I do criticize, because I know that a reader whose work puts me off will put me off of an audiobook entirely. There are readers I cannot bear to listen to and readers I absolutely love, and the differences in their styles aren’t always noticeable to other listeners. In this instance, I found Hoye’s narration too affected at the beginning of the book. Thankfully, his reading grew on me as he relaxed into the role, and by the end, I was comfortable with his style. Skipping back to the beginning to work on this review reawoke my misgivings, though, so it seemed worth mentioning.

Author: Terry Pratchett

Reader: Stephen Briggs

Short Review: This follow-up to Going Postal follows Moist Von Lipwig as he embarks on a new venture: running the Mint at the all-too-pointed behest of Lord Vetinari. Briggs, as usual, reads well and beautifully. Pratchett, as usual, is funny and satirical. What’s not to love?

Long Review Considering when this book was released and when Pratchett must have started work on it, I’m beginning to believe the man is downright prescient. Making Money opens in the midst of a financial crisis in Ankh-Morpork. Lord Vetinari encourages Lipwig to take over Ankh-Morpork’s banks and mint and reverse the longstanding gross mismanagement and corruption. Lipwig tries to refuse, finds he can’t, and digs right in.

The familiar Vetinari, Lipwig, and Dearheart all return, and are joined by a number of other interesting characters like Malvolio Bent, chief cashier and Harry King, garbage kingpin. We learn more about Dearheart’s work in the Golem’s rights movement, Lipwig’s past, and business happenings in Ankh-Morpork.

The plot isn’t quite as organized or fast-paced as Going Postal, which makes me wonder if it was rushed to press, or if Pratchett fell out of love with the story towards the end. Whatever the reason, I’m not all that disappointed. This isn’t Pratchett’s best work, but it’s much more entertaining than most of the jolly satire laying about. I’ll keep listening to his audiobooks and reading his paper books as long as he produces them, and I’d encourage you all to do the same.

Author: John Connolly

Reader: Steven Crossley

Short Review: A decent book with a major flaw, read beautifully by Steven Crossley. Connolly’s book starts out as a promising depiction of the interior life of a bookish, depressed boy with apparently undiagnosed epilepsy and OCD. Unfortunately, it continues on into an all-too-familiar series of retellings of classic fairytales, several of which villanize women for no clear reason. I expected and hoped for more from the book itself. Thankfully, I truly enjoyed Crossley’s narration, and allowed it to carry me through a book that otherwise left me scratching my head and feeling disappointed and maligned.

Long Review: I’m a true mythology buff, so I’ve read many books that recast fairytales and myths in new lights. Some authors do a wonderful job with such work–Neil Gaiman, Angela Carter, Anne Sexton, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, and T.H. White all come to mind as masters. But many others can’t meet the task and end up producing novels that can’t match the wonder of the original tales or modernize them in interesting, contemporary ways. I think Connolly’s book falls in that later group.

There are some shining moments in the novel. I love David’s wondrous relationship to books, and how that connects him to his mother, arguably the only positive female character in the book. Her explanation of how real stories feel about the inconsequential stories in newspapers is lovely, and will stay with me. The end of the book is also very appealing to me. I love thinking of the adult David continuing to serve books and being a good man, once all is said and done. In general, I think Connolly is a good writer with a good sense of pace and language. I think his take on sibling rivalry is interesting, as is his vision of a child’s relationship to reality, fantasy, and death. While I was listening early on, I enjoyed the book and the narration equally. It was when I was thinking about the book between listenings that I became frustrated.

What truly disappoints me is the misogynist twist Connolly gives most of the tales used in his book. Every major female character other than David’s mother is criticized for her eating habits or weight, sexual choices, appearance, strength, weakness, hunger . . . it’s too much and too common in the book to ignore. Two persistent villains are male, yes, but we expect a werewolf and a Trickster to be villains. I won’t quibble about the child-eating witches who show up in the book as villains, since they were villains in the original forms of the tales. But was it really necessary for Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and all of the other women who show up in the book to be morphed into disgusting, senseless villains? Even Rose, David’s step-mother, is attacked for eating too much and having sex out of wedlock. What is that about? Could Connolly think of no way to retell or change those classic tales without turning all of the female central characters into monsters? Why could none of the kind characters in the book who help David in the other world be female? It really makes me wonder about the author’s views on women. Over and over again, the misogyny forced me out of the story. If Connolly needed to make so many women villains, he should have given more thought to why he needed to do so and addressed that in the book. As it is, the thread seems to reveal more about Connolly than it does about David, and it leaves me loath to bother with the rest of Connolly’s catalog.

As angry as Connolly’s misogyny makes me, I stuck with the book because Crossley’s reading is downright beautiful. I fell for him as a narrator with In The Woods. If anything, his work improves with this novel. His voice is clear and layered, his diction is great, and he voices the different characters distinctly without making too much fuss. I will absolutely seek out more books read by Crossley. I wish we’d set up our review system here at Books For Ears so we review books and readers separately: Crossley gets five stars, Connolly gets 2, max.

 Author: Neal Stephenson

 Reader: Oliver Wyman, Tavia Gilbert, William Dufris, Neal Stephenson

 Short Review: A pretty good but overly long book from one of my favorite authors, read less-than-ideally. This alternate future tale depicts a world where the intellectual elite are forcibly cloistered in pseudo-monastic communities around the world where they’re free to think and learn but denied access to many technologies and to “saecular,” (i.e., non-intellectual) society. The protagonist Fraa Erasmus is layered and likeable, but the book could stand to lose a couple of hundred pages and the narration isn’t as good as it should be. In this instance, I think I would have preferred the paper book to the audio book.

Long Review: This book has gotten a lot of attention on the web. Stephenson is a very important, very good sci-fi writer, and his work is particularly popular among web monkeys like me. He wrote The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, i.e., oh-my-god-the-best-sci-fi-book-everrrrr. My heart breaks to criticize him. He’s brilliant, and he writes great women and interesting plots, and he clearly knows more about science than I do, so I won’t criticize him there. But, sometimes, he needs to be reigned in. It feels like he just plain wasn’t this time. I don’t shy away from long books. I love long books, as long as their length is merited. This time around, Stephenson came up with a huuuuuge concept and fleshed out every little bit of it. I wish he’d paired things down.

Stephenson has a habit of going on tangents that get a bit out of hand. Some of the tangents, like the those about mythology in Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, amuse me to no end. In Anathem, some of the tangents were less appealing to me because they tended to be about mathematical theory, but in an alternate reality where each theorem has a different name. It just got to be a bit much. But, I’m a mythology buff and not a math buff, so another reader could have the opposite reaction.

Most of the major characters in this novel are compelling and likable, which is perhaps its greatest strength. Erasmus, Orolo, Ala, Lio, Jad, Sammann, Cord, and Yul are the kind of people who should populate more books. So many sci-fi and fantasy writers can only write plot, and fill their plots with little more than thumbnail sketches of people. Stephenson gives a lot of thought to his characters. He ends up constructing personalities we want to continue to follow, ever after hundreds of pages with them.

My biggest complaint about this book is the narration. William Dufris, who does the lion’s share of the narration, uses some inflections and has reading habits that really, really annoy me. In moments of tension, Dufris uses volume changes and breathiness to impart emotion rather than, you know, emotion. The result is swaths of text that are hard to understand because his attempts to emote just end up being hard to hear. Over and over, I’d be happy with the narration for ages and then I’d smack right into another instance of over-wrought, odd readings. It made my ears itch. And because this is a very long book, each instance bothered me more than the last, and each made me like the audiobook less. In all fairness, the spaces between these instances were generally good. I’d be fine with Dufris for an hour or two, and then I’d want to throttle him, and then my annoyance would pass and I’d forgive Dufris until . . . Remember, this is 32.5 hours of listening. Even if Dufris was annoying for only 5 percent of that time, that’s a lot of time with itchy teeth.

There are other narrators, who largely serve as the voice of a dictionary, introducing new words at chapter openings. Tavia Gilbert read from the dictionary several times, and her voice is wonderful. I will seek her out in other audio books. Neal Stephenson also reads some of the definitions, and I vastly preferred his narration to Dufris’. Whenever Stephenson would read a portion of the book, I would latch onto his voice and wish he’d continue for the rest of the work.

All in all, this is perhaps my least favorite book of Stephenson’s, and I’m not happy with the main reader. It is the longest audio book I’ve listened to, and I knew that the whole time I was listening. I couldn’t forget its length. Far too often, it felt like a lengthy homework assignment rather than an enjoyable passtime.

Author: Michael Chabon
Reader: Peter Riegert

Extra features: The audiobook includes an interview with Michael Chabon about his inspiration for the book, his favorite books and genres, and his writing process.

Short Review: Chabon’s Hugo and Nebula award-winning alternate history of a world without Israel but with a temporary Jewish homeland in Sitka, Alaska. Hard-boiled detective Meyer Landsman investigates the murder of a junkie chess-player with his partner and cousin Berko Shemets, a half-Tlingit, half-Jewish cop who is a good father, a good Jew, and a good partner trying to save Landsman from himself. As the case progresses, more and more connections to organized crime, shady US government machinations, separatist Orthodox communities, and zealotry reveal themselves. Riegert is an ideal reader, comfortable with accents, Yiddish, noir, and sadness.

Long Review: I love this book. I read it on paper first, and was anxious to hear how well Reigert would handle Landsman’s voice. He does a masterful job. The book is written in the third person, but Landsman is on just about every page, so we hear his speech over and over. Reigert is careful to give Lansman, Berko Shemetz, and the other major characters distinct voices and rhythms, and he does a very good job of it. Like all of the best audiobook readers I’ve heard, Riegert balances acting with diction; maintaining a good rhythm and drawing a complete character while also keeping his accented speech easy to understand.

The novel is set in Sitka, Alaska in an alternate history. In the world of the novel, Israel fell to Arab attack in 1948, and the US agreed to make a temporary semi-autonomous federal district in Sitka for Jewish refugees. Sitka’s term of independence is ending, and all of the Jewish refugees there must prepare to leave for new homes elsewhere. As the local police are wrapping up their case files to hand over to the Americans, a junkie is murdered in the hotel where Landsman lives and Landsman takes the case. He should file the case away as quickly as possible but can’t let it go. The deeper Landsman investigates the victim and his connections, the more entangled he becomes.

Chabon writes wonderful characters, in this and all of his novels. Landsman, his ex-wife and boss Bina, Berko Shemetz, and the rest of the characters in the novel are engaging and deep and fascinating. You root for Landsman, but you also want to strangle him. Riegert’s narration intensifies that connection to Landsman and the rest. I found myself worrying about them all while listening to the novel, even though I already knew what was coming next.

Chabon does amazing things with language and speech in this novel. I’m no expert on Yiddish, of course, but I love the way Chabon intertwines Yiddish with noir phrasing and settings. It flips the whole hard-boiled detective genre–in a good way. I doubt there will ever be a sequel, but I would absolutely love the chance to follow Landsman and Shemetz on another case.

All in all, this is a fascinating, entertaining, beautifulky-read audiobook and one I know I’ll return to.